


Superspies Know

by hugthenerds



Category: Avengers (Comics), Black Widow (Comics), Marvel, The Avengers (2012), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 08:12:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hugthenerds/pseuds/hugthenerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post Winter Soldier #14 drabble.</p>
<p>It's impossible to think that the great Black Widow wouldn't notice the traces that half of her life had been cut away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Superspies Know

Eyes flick open. Look at the pillow to the left. _Empty_. Feel for dagger under the pillow. Still there. The coast seems to be clear. At least for now. Then there’s the initial flicker, that little something, like the echo of a memory. The faintest scent of aftershave lingering in the air…

But there were too many things to be done to think about it. It must’ve just been on her from someone at work the night before. Nat sat up, her eyes taking the instinctual scan across the room, finding nothing out of place upon first glance. Everything as it should be. As normal as her life could be, given the circumstances. 

It was almost boring, all of this. The same old routine: wake up, shower, go to work, fight some people, gain information, write a report, go to sleep. And repeat. It was almost as though someone had dropped her into this cycle, taken anything exciting out of her life. Some days, it felt as though every reason she’d ever had to live had just been stripped from her overnight. 

So she has to get up, to shower, to go to work, to perpetuate the cycle. But every now and then there are these flashes, these little glimpses of some other life, some other person. A scent, a razor blade in her shower, dark hairs on her hairbrush, or— 

“Clint, please tell me you saw that,” she murmured, pulling a ‘mom seatbelt’, tossing her arm across the man’s chest to stop him in the tracks. “That flicker. Like metal hitting light and bouncing across the room.” 

“Yeah, duh, Tasha. This is SHIELD; nearly everything is made of metal here,” he shot back, an eyebrow raised. “Y’feeling alright?” 

“I’m fine, idiot,” she replied, her eyes fixed on that spot. “This hallway. Where does that door lead?” she asked, pointing to a door just left of where she’d seen the light. 

“Pretty sure that’s the training room for sensory deprivation,” he mumbled, his tone uninterested in what she was saying. “C’mon. ‘M hungry, and we’ve only got about 10 more minutes for lunch.” 

“You go on without me,” Nat insisted, her tone almost dreamlike as she separated from the man, moving toward the door. 

“Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!” he called out after her, rolling his eyes as he turned away, heading toward the HQ cafeteria. 

Shooing him off a bit, Nat moved with expert skill toward the door, being sure not to make the slightest sound or leave a trace that she’d gone that way. The door was a cinch, really. SHIELD’s security had never really been a match for her espionage and stealth skills. 

She held her position at the now unlocked door for a moment, merely listening for any sign of disturbance or movement. Upon hearing nothing, Nat carefully pushed her way inside, rolling behind the door immediately for cover. She then pulled out the gun strapped to her thigh, her eyes taking in the entire room at once. 

“Spotless,” Nat murmured, noticing that everything seemed to have its own specific place and holding. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and the place was even cleaner than the rest of the building. 

Caught off guard by the cleanliness of the small, seemingly unimportant room, she decided that Clint was probably right and she’d been paranoid, overly cautious. She furrowed her brow at the entire scene, still a bit skeptical of the situation; closing the door carefully, she moved back toward where Clint had headed, toward the cafeteria. 

Then, and only then, did James allow himself to crawl out from the hidden area where the ceiling tiles separate and land noiselessly on the floor of the small room. Sure, it was dangerous, but as much as he loved Natalia and wanted her to be happy without him, it was hard to quit her. 

How does anyone just quit her cold turkey?


End file.
